By Justin Flynn
Some of Geelong’s northern suburbs were battered by an intense summer storm that swept through the area on Tuesday afternoon, leaving thousands without power and prompting desperate calls to the SES for help.
Lara, Corio and Anakie were the worst hit with Corio SES saying it received 111 calls for help between noon and 4.15pm.
The storm appeared after a sweltering day where the mercury reached 41 degrees in Lara.
Almost 6000 homes were without power on Tuesday with more than 2000 in Lara and Corio still not connected by Wednesday afternoon, according to Powercor.
One Lara resident said their power wasn’t reconnected until about 7.30am on Wednesday.
“Our friend sent us footage from his security camera and was all done and over in three minutes and 52 seconds,” Brittany Bell said.
“It was intense. Very wild and it all happened so quickly. We were surprised our trampoline didn’t fly away and then later we saw that others did.”
Ms Bell said her five-year-old daughter was at Lara Primary School when the storm hit and she said it was “loud and scary, the lights flickered on and off” and that all students were told to stay inside.
“She hoped peoples’ damaged houses and fences could be fixed quickly and was sad about the trees,” Ms Bell said.
The Bureau of Meteorology reported wind gusts of up to 122km/h at Avalon at 2.21pm.
The extreme weather caused six transmission towers to collapse near Anakie .
Powercor sent an emergency response vehicle to Lara Community Centre on Wednesday.
“We are deploying our emergency response vehicle (known as MERV) to Lara later this morning to support people without power,” Powercor said on Wednesday morning.
“The vehicle provides a hub for people to charge phones, use a wifi hotspot and get on-the-ground advice about the current outages.“
At the peak of the outage, more than half a million homes and businesses statewide were left without power.
Energy Safe Victoria warned people not to go anywhere near fallen powerlines.
Energy Safe chief executive Michelle McCorkell said fallen lines pose a very real risk of electrocution.
“Powerlines carry electrical currents that can kill in an instant – even broken ones – and getting too close to them can be deadly,” she said.
“To avoid electrocution that can cause serious injury or death, you must stay at least eight metres away – that’s about two car lengths. Don’t be curious, do not touch powerlines or anything they’re touching including pools of water or cars.”
